Work Text:
When Abigail was eight, her grandmother tries to teach her how to play. Abigail is never very good. Her fingers are clumsy, and she does not properly grasp the flute, which keeps slipping from her hands, until one day it cracks. Abigail cries, but her grandmother soothes her. No, it could not be mended, it would not sound the same (which was maybe for the better, because Abigail’s playing was truly terrible) – but broken is not lost forever. They can make a new one.
Abigail’s eyes widen, when her grandmother shows her how to practice cutting thin reeds just so and punch holes at set intervals. Abigail imitates her, step by step, until she has a whole collection of papery flutes.
“Good,” says her grandmother. “Now we can make a real one.”
She shows her how to replicate the process, this time using different tools, and hollowed cedar. It takes days. In the end, her grandmother carves a small, jagged decoration into the wood. “This is how the women of Moab decorate their flutes,” she said. “My husband’s mother taught me how to make them. And now you know too.”
By the time she is twelve, it is common knowledge that Abigail can make flutes that sound like flowing brooks and singing birds and spring winds. Of course, no matter how hard she tries, she still can’t produce any sounds remotely as beautiful herself. But her brother can.
David’s fingers are nimble; they fly on the little flute she makes him, and he practices for hours on end on the mountain as he watches his flock, and nearby villagers all know that the songs resonating from the valley are coming from Jesse’s little boy.
By the time he is nine, David is bored of playing the flute. “I have played all of the songs,” he says with a giant sigh, the light of the fire adding dramatic shadows to his face.
Abigail snorts, amused. “All of them?” she asks.
“All of them,” he says firmly. “I play the same songs every morning, every evening, every day. Even the sheep hate me. I invent new songs, but you can only play one note at once, and it is boring.”
The sheep do look a bit annoyed, Abigail admits. And her brother really is a charming thing, and if the sheep are at a point of passing judgement, the situation must be dire.
There is an instrument Abigail has seen on the caravans of traveling merchants. You can play more than one note on them at once. “I have an idea,” she says, beginning to form a plan. It will be a challenge, but something inside her tells her that it’s right.
She’s going to need some wood and some string.
truly could not care less